Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind.

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

What drug lords learned from big business. How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the $300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola.

Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana - Medical, Recreational, and Scientific

Martin A. Lee traces the dramatic social history of marijuana, from its origins to its emergence in the 1960s as a defining force in a culture war that has never ceased. Lee describes how the illicit marijuana subculture overcame government opposition and morphed into a dynamic, multibillion-dollar industry. Colorful, illuminating, and at times irreverent, this is a fascinating listen for recreational users and patients, students and doctors, musicians and accountants, Baby Boomers and their kids, and anyone who has ever wondered about the secret life of this ubiquitous herb.

Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

The tsunami of cheap credit that rolled across the planet between 2002 and 2008 was more than a simple financial phenomenon: it was temptation, offering entire societies the chance to reveal aspects of their characters they could not normally afford to indulge. The Greeks wanted to turn their country into a pinata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack at it. The Germans wanted to be even more German; the Irish wanted to stop being Irish.

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State

In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet an anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the 29-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency’s widespread, systemic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security....

Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America - addiction like no other the country has ever faced. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland.

The Maltese Falcon

Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, first serialized in a magazine in 1930, is best known through the iconic Humphrey Bogart film of 1941. But it was the book that created the classic "noir" genre with its tough private detective threading his cool way between the criminals and the law. Sam Spade, the private eye solving the mystery of the Maltese statuette, was the template for Philip Marlowe and a host of others…. but they come no more shrewd and cunning with Hammett peppering the text with one-liners.

America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History

From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country's most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise - now more than 30 years old and with no end in sight.

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

Jeffrey Toobin has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1993 and is the senior legal analyst for CNN. In 2000 he received an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elian Gonzalez case. He is the author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, which spent more than four months on the New York Times best seller list. Before joining The New Yorker, Toobin served as an assistant United States attorney in Brooklyn, New York. He lives in Manhattan.

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such problems for decades.

Them: Adventures with Extremists

Them began as a book about different kinds of extremists, but after Jon had got to know some of them - Islamic fundamentalists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klansmen - he found that they had one oddly similar belief: that a tiny, shadowy elite rule the world from a secret room. In Them, Jon sets out, with the help of the extremists, to locate that room. The journey is as creepy as it is comic, and along the way Jon is chased by men in dark glasses, unmasked as a Jew in the middle of a Jihad training camp, and more.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ's Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

In this irreverent and illuminating audiobook, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, chance, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious causes, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters; From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima

From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters.

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Hailed by Lena Dunham as an "essential (and hilarious) voice for women", Lindy West is ferociously witty and outspoken, tackling topics as varied as pop culture, social justice, and body image. Her empowering work has garnered a coast-to-coast audience that eagerly awaits Shrill, her highly anticipated literary debut.

The Botany of Desire

Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship.

Kissinger: Volume I: 1923-1968: The Idealist

No American statesman has been as revered and as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super-K" - the "indispensable man" whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama - he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon" for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial biography, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.

Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders

Prosecuting attorney in the Manson trial Vincent Bugliosi held a unique insider's position in one of the most baffling and horrifying cases of the 20th century: the cold-blooded Tate-LaBianca murders carried out by Charles Manson and four of his followers. What motivated Manson in his seemingly mindless selection of victims, and what was his hold over the young women who obeyed his orders? Now available for the first time in unabridged audio, the gripping story of this famous and haunting crime is brought to life by acclaimed narrator Scott Brick.

Publisher's Summary

In Reefer Madness, the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation investigates America's black market and its far-reaching influence on our society through three of its mainstays - pot, porn, and illegal immigrants.

The underground economy is vast; it comprises perhaps 10 percent - perhaps more - of America's overall economy, and it's on the rise. Eric Schlosser charts this growth, and finds its roots in the nexus of ingenuity, greed, idealism, and hypocrisy that is American culture. He reveals the fascinating workings of the shadow economy by focusing on marijuana, one of the nation's largest cash crops; pornography, whose greatest beneficiaries include Fortune 100 companies; and illegal migrant workers, whose lot often resembles that of medieval serfs.

All three industries show how the black market has burgeoned over the past three decades, as America's reckless faith in the free market has combined with a deep-seated Puritanism to create situations both preposterous and tragic. Through pot, porn, and migrants, Schlosser traces compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new technology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, how big business learns - and profits - from the underground.

With intrepid reportage, rich history, and incisive argument, Schlosser illuminates the shadow economy and the culture that casts that shadow.

What the Critics Say

"Like Fast Food Nation, this is an eye-opening book, offering the same high level of reporting and research." (Publishers Weekly) "Schlosser's precise outrage is as compelling off as on the page." (AudioFile)

Nearly all of us eat fast food, but it took Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation for us to learn what it means in American Society. Reefer Madness is similar, looking at ways in which our society has gotten far off track. I thought the black market was a problem for post-Soviet Russia. Through insightful investigative journalism, Schlosser shows the problem exists -- and thrives -- right here at home. His essays exposing the vast reach of the underground economy read like novels, with engaging characters, as he exposes some basic, ugly truths at the core of our society that have not received the attention they deserve. Schlosser holds a mirror that helps us see our culture more clearly, warts and all.

This book does not live up to the standard Schlosser set in Fast Food Nation, which I read last year. Made up of three essays, one on Marijuana one on illegal immigrant labor, and one on the porn industry. The premise of the book is that Schlosser will describe the underground economy of which these three topics play a major role. But the essays actually tell nothing about economics and right away get into political topics on which Schlosser is not at all shy in stating is own preference. In each topic, Schlosser actually use one or two case studies, but the overall point of these case studies is not at all clear.

By far, the most interesting topic is the porn industry, if only because this topic is just not covered much. Rather than an economic study, it should be relabeled a history of the porn industry. Even here, though, the material is not really a complete history, but rather a couple cases that Schlosser has followed up on, and the central topic is the government's war against porn producers. Schlosser's own reading is also uninspiring, but I think that is really just a result of material that is neither academically rigorous nor exciting or relevant as investigative reporting (which is what Schlosser is really aiming at).

This book is full of information on the underground market surrounding migrant workers, drugs, and porn but there is very little synthesis or analysis of what should be done to stem these actvities. In each of the three essays, the author details the issue's history and lists numerous facts about the topic, but then fails to come to any solid conclusion about what should be done to end this madness. After the first hour or so I just kept thinking, "What's your point?". I thought that he would wrap things up in the end so I plowed on through hoping for a conclusion. Unfortunately, this never happened. He listed several plausible reasons for decriminalizing marijuana and porn but never went beyond saying that it was working in European countries. It left me feeling unsatisfied. After all the research that went into this book, I expected more in the way of a conclusion, a suggestion or a plan for dealing with these abominations, but got none.

I listened to and really enjoyed Fast Food Nation which prompted me to get this one. Eric writes an interesting book full of facts and details. The problem with Reefer Madness is that it has a different reader (Eric reads his own book this time) -- this is a problem because his voice puts you right to sleep -- it has a soft, almost monotone reading, no dynamics in his voice whatsoever. The content is very interesting, although to me it felt like it could have been a fair bit more focused - he seems to repeat himself a lot instead of taking thigs a bit more logically, I think - it may be intentional, I suppose.

This is another of Eric Schlosser's brilliant works - one of those where I didn't want to get out of the car. Whereas other reviewers are asking for conclusions to be made by the author, I had absolutely no problem interpreting the author's conclusion or moreover, coming to my own, and I believe this is the author's intent - that the reader/listener SEE the destruction created by the goverment's witch hunts and failed policies.

Eric Schlosser's expose on the controversial black market commodities that continue to be argued over time and time again by supposed "experts" is a prime example of just part of what is wrong with America.

While the drug wars in other countries have taken a more proactive and rehabilitive approach, America stands idle, sometimes moving in reverse of a policy that actually work. Meanwhile cheap labor continues to be a profitable tool for the wealthy while blame gets displaced on disparaged immigrants trying to survive in a system that is focused on corporate greed and class and economic warfare. And pornography? Well, as the books theme comes full circle we learn an important value in our society. The more our government doesn't want us to have something, the more we want that something.

Schlosser takes a hard look at three very important parts of our economy, although small in comparison to most of the economy, large in our culture. I am really looking forward to Fast Food Nation!

America is a country of stark inconsistencies. From our divergent policies to our hyprocritical personal behaivor. Eric offers thought-provoking criticism and common sense alternatives for our flawed logic. It is a great book for anyone who likes to form their own opinion and does not take an issue at face value. My only complaint is that the author/narrator can be a bit flat. In his defense, it is his material and he knows how it should be presented.

This book tackles our marijuana policy, illegal immigrant labor, and pornography. An alarming chapter mentions the staunch anti-drug politicians. It is suprising to hear how these politicians change their tune when their own children are incarcerated on drug offenses. It is my opinion that freedom loving patriots should join together and revoke the current political system, it's participants, and install a democracy.

this book was very informative, but it was sadly fatalistic in tone. while I am now well informed as to the workings of the black market, I feel as though Schlosser, although not endorsing pornography, at least views it as an inevitability against which we have no weapons. drugs and migrant workers are two other complex and socially distructive problems which are dealt with, but again, with no solid conclusions reached. as I have already stated, I am now well informed, but a little more hopeless.

I thought this was a great book. It is well researched and presented topic which I have not seen presented elsewhere. Some people have complained about the repeating. However, the way the book is set up a ffew stories are used to link the sections of the book. The repeating is to recap the story. I think the recapping and use of the stories of various people make for better push in the book.